San Mateo County’s former ‘woman of the year’ gets jail after $800,000 goes missing

REDWOOD CITY – A Foster City woman was sentenced to six months in county jail Thursday for laundering more than $800,000 from a San Carlos-based nonprofit that she formerly worked for, prosecutors said.

Clarise Ann Blanchard, 79, who served as clinical director of behavioral health nonprofit StarVista for 20 years, pleaded no contest in October to felony identity theft, felony tax fraud and felony money laundering in excess of $150,000, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.

Blanchard, who began working for the nonprofit in 2002, diverted about $813,000 of donations meant for StarVista into personal bank accounts between 2009 and 2022, prosecutors said.

San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Kevin Dunleavy also sentenced Blanchard to two years of probation and 250 hours of community service, prosecutors said. Blanchard will pay restitution to StarVista, which closed last year due to financial challenges, as well as to the Internal Revenue Service and the State Franchise Tax Board. The amounts will be determined at a hearing in November.

At the hearing, Blanchard told the judge that she was “so, so sorry for the decisions she made,” prosecutors added.

Shin-Mee Chang, chief deputy district attorney for San Mateo County, said that though the DA’s office would have liked a longer sentence, it respects the court’s decision. The DA’s office had requested Blanchard be sentenced to three years and four months in state prison.

“We respect the court’s decision,” Chang said. “He heard arguments from both sides and, ultimately, it’s the court’s decision.”

Chang added that Blanchard likely would have received a higher sentence if the case had gone to trial and obtained guilty verdicts on all the original charges. Blanchard was originally charged in 2023 with embezzlement and forgery, but those charges were dropped as part of her plea deal, according to court records.

Josh Bentley, Blanchard’s defense attorney, did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Star Vista was first made aware of missing funds after Blanchard retired in 2022, when the nonprofit was alerted to a $50,000 donation that was not deposited to its bank account, prosecutors said.

The nonprofit initiated an audit, which found that Blanchard had created a bank account in her name at Chase Bank to which she redirected donations made to the nonprofit, prosecutors said. She also forged the signature of the nonprofit’s director on thank-you notes to those who gave donations.

Prosecutors also noted that Blanchard was honored as San Mateo County Woman of the Year in 2008.

StarVista said in a statement in 2023 that Blanchard acted independently and that the theft did not involve any misappropriation of partner assets.

“Blanchard’s actions were in no way consistent with their job duties and were completely outside the scope of their employment at StarVista,” the organization said. “(Blanchard) selfishly abused her influence to initiate and perpetuate multiple leaves of dishonesty.”